The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1887-05-26

''Sel the farml" 1 cried, starting up.
my fathers, my grandfather's, my great
grandfathers-"
"Your NOah's, your Adams"
"How do you dare talk so to me, Mark
Myers, about my homel' ] cried, more
vexed and more.
81 shouldn't think you had called my
home prison and dungeon" he retorted.
well, 1t Is! the gloomiest, the"
Nov hush, my darling; hush, you little
vfxen," said Mark, laughing, with his hand
on my lips, cor you'll say something you'll
be sorry for"
you've said something you'll be sorry
for" cried-''calling me vixen. l may
be vixen, but If you were gentleman
But the Myerses always were tyrants, and
Pm glad I've found you out in time-so
calm, and so cool, and SO fixed in your OWL
way. And ru never, never, go and live IN
your old prison-house," / cried, growing
angrier and angrier, Heaven only knows
why. "And you may just whistle for your
dog, and go there yourself, and go alone.
never want TO see your face again" And
before he could grasp me and prevent me,
/ had flashed into the house, and had shut
and bolted the door.
He waited then; he waited, should think,
an hour. And l sat inside, burning with
anger, and with an unconscious sense OF
shame, very likely, and a bitter disappoint-
ment, and wild, unnamed fear. And at
last he rose slowly and looked at the win
dows, and turned away and called old
Roland, and went slowly down the lane.
And he never came back. could see him
walking along, ever so slowly, in the clear
moonlight, with the dogs nose in his hand,
till the road turned into the wood that
mounted the hill. And when he had gone
just threw myself on the floor, and all but
dissolved in my mad tears. And didn't
know what the tears were for-whether
for fear Of losing Mark, or for fear of losing
my home, or for fear of giving up my will ;
but it seemed to me that the end Of the
world had as good as come.
We were both orphans, we both had these
great properties, and we had both better
have been beggars.
That was June and the full-moon.
didn't sleep any that night hardly know
why; presentiment of evil kept me waking,
although was so tired. remember that
moon now, hanging in the purple sky, with
her wide wings, like great boding ghost.
Every time l looked out, there she was.
shut her out, but Law awake all the same,
my mind in a wild whirl.
The next evening, in the long after-glow
of the sunset, l tripped down the lane to
the wood, sure that should meet him, as !
always had done, on his way to me; but the
shape had been used to see bounding down
the path did not see again. went close
to the shadow of the wood, but only old
Roland came and put his nose in my hand,
and waited with me while waited, and
went back with me a little way when
went back. 1t did not occur to me to think
that where Roland was, his master was
not far distant. And l went down the lane
no more.
After that, then, one day crept by, and
another, and life continued in the old way,
and all the business of the great farm
thrived in the hands of Bryan, the directing
overseer, and all seemed to me mere idle
ness. The moving machines were hum
ming all day in the meadows, and the huge
loads of fragrant hay came laboring into
the barns, and thunder-clouds made panics,
and the lightning fell, as it always did on
the wet, low grounds, and burned one or
two hay-stacks; and then the gundelows
went down the river for the salt hay and
came back, days afterward, with their dark
square sails set atop of their square loads
of thatch; and one by one all the concerns
of ripening and harvesting had their sea-
son, and passed, and August was over.
And Mark had never once been up the lane
again; and September had gone, and the
harvest-moon; and the hunters moon had
poured its silver floods of light out of a
great lonely heaven; and still Mark had
never come.
1 suppose Mrs. Wells, my next reighbor,
knew all about it. And Mrs. Sawyer, on the
other side, of course knew all that Mrs
Wells did. They were very good to me, and
they and the girls were always running in
to see me, or sending for me to run in and
see them. 1 don't think I was trying to
carry things off with high hand, and
know wasn't hanging my head and crying
over what was not to be helped; / simply
made up my mind to the inevitable. Twas
never going to have Mark beside me any
more, and must endure it, and get through
life as well as could. l had this farm on
my hands, and all the people who had their
living from it. and must do my duty. And
perhaps in time fate would be kinder, and
give me fever or a cough, and let me lie
down and die; and he would come then and
look on me, and remember how had loved
him, and be sorry. And thinking how sorry
he would be was Joy Rugged to my heart,
and the only JOY had.
But / used to long so sometimes to see
Marks dear face again, to hear his voice,
just to lay nay head on his shoulder, and cry
my eyes out there. Sometimes it used to
seem to me that / couldn't live another
minute if didn't run down that lane and up
through the wood to the old house on the
rock and find him, and beg him to forgive
oh, not just that burst of
temper, but the whole rebellion of my soul
and come back to me; and sometimes l
felt that must take some sleeping potion
that would keep me benumbed till the pain
had passed, or else must throw myself into
the river always running by, brimmed and
shining and Indifferent.
And began to hate the river-the river
that had used to love so in the sunshine,
all blue and silver; that 1 had loved so,
dimpling in its soft grays in rainy weather;
where had never tired Of seeing the ice
boats dart along when it lay white under
its wintry mail-the river that now. in
my grief and trouble and WEAKNESS,
flowed past as calmly as if had never seen
it. How could it be so irresponsive, rolling
on bright and strong and steady, giving me
back NO sympathy now in my sorrowful
mood, giving me even no vantage-ground:
for should have had to wade into it if l
had wanted to drown myself. Yes, began
to hate the river. began to hate, too,
these long, tiresome, motionless levels of
the grass lands-oh, so fiat, so monotonous,
so lowl ''One is simply under ground
here" 1 said to myself. "One has really
not the air to breathe. One becomes like
those slugs that live under the damp side
of a stone. am under stone myself. o,
for just breath Of air from some point a
little way up the skyr began to hate, 1
saw the long green grass fields: and then 7